Hundreds express solidarity with Anna

SINDRI: Hundreds of people on Sunday joined the daylong dharna organized by the Sindri chapter of civil society to express solidarity with Anna Hazare who is on a protest in Delhi.

Besides common people, members of the Rotary Club, Lions Club, Sindri Chamber of Commerce and Gayatri Parivar also sat on dharna to support the cause.

Addressing the gathering, speakers stressed on the need for a strong Lokpal bill and autonomous CBI to bring the corrupt to book. Tearing into the UPA government's attempt to shield the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, the speakers held the Congress and its policies responsible for poverty, unemployment and lack of basic amenities in almost every part of the nation.

Coming down heavily on leaders, speakers of Team Anna said Mahatma Gandhi and Jai Prakash Narayan did not contest elections but that does not mean that their contribution to the Indian politics was less important than those who enjoyed the politics of power.

Anna and his team has created an awareness on corruption prevailing in the nation that is not going to die down so easily whatever repressive measures the government may adopt they opined and called upon the government to honour the public sentiments and pass a strong Lokpal Bill at the earliest. Deepak Kumar, Ram Naresh Singh, Ashok Sharma, Ali Ahmed Khan, Manoj Mishra, Dilip Ritolia, Vijay Singh, Uttam Mukherjee, B D Rajkumar were prominent among others who addressed the gathering.

Anna Hazare's methods are not Gandhian: Tushar Gandhi

NEW DELHI: As Anna Hazare sat on a one-day fast demanding a strong Lokpal, Mahatma Gandhi's great grandson Tushar Gandhi on Sunday attacked the activist saying his methods are "not Gandhian" as they are becoming a "mere ritual".

"His methods are not Gandhian because this is now turning into a mere ritual that every time he lands up in Delhi, he goes to Rajghat. It does not seem to be that the inspiration carry any further than that... because there is talks about beating up and hitting people," he said.

His remarks came as Hazare went to Rajghat and spend around half-an-hour meditating there.

"I would wish that more than the ritual, the understanding (of Gandhian principles) would be there, then the inspiration would be genuine," he said.

Bapu’s labour union cheats jobless mill workers of crores

AHMEDABAD: At a time when Gandhian Anna Hazare is set to begin a fast against corruption, a Gandhian institution in Ahmedabad has been accused of fraud.

Mahatma Gandhi started Majoor Mahajan Sangh in 1920 to fight for the rights of textile mill workers and even undertook a fast to convince mill owners to give the workers higher pay.

Today, the sangh is being accused of subverting Gandhian values. Police in Ahmedabad has accused leaders of the labour union of siphoning off crores of rupees meant to be compensation for jobless workers of 29 closed textile mills. The FIR, filed on Saturday, has named Raman Patel, president of the sangh, its secretary Manhar Shukla, chartered accountants Amal Datt & Associates, private lender Mohanlal Shah, Bapunagar Mahila Co-operative Bank and the HC appointed official liquidator as accused.

According to the FIR, savings accounts were opened in both cooperative and nationalized banks in the name of people who had never worked in a textile mill and the money withdrawn.

The scam came to light when Mansukh Parmar, who retired from Calico Mills in 1988, filed a complaint of fraud and embezzlement with the Navrangpura police. He told the police that when textile mills closed down in 1999, the Central government had come out with a scheme of giving the workers 18 months salary as compensation.

The sangh was asked to identify beneficiaries of the scheme and Parmar was on one of the committees identifying workers. Parmar alleges Calico Mills had 4,949 workers who were entitled for compensation. However, the sangh prepared a list of 5,757 names, 808 workers more than the actual number. He alleged that he was thrown out of the committee because he objected to this anomaly.

The sangh passed on the inflated list to the liquidator who issued cheques without verifying the names. Parmar had said in his complaint that instead of handing over cheques individually to beneficiaries, the liquidator gave all the cheques to the sangh officials.

The sangh officials have been accused of selling the cheques to a private lender at a discount. Police officials have found that at least 284 cheques have been issued in the names of people who had never worked in a textile mill. Yet, savings accounts were opened in their names in the Bapunagar bank and Rs 1.63 crore was withdrawn.

Times View 

This scam brings shame to the name of Mahatma Gandhi, who set up the Majoor Mahajan Sangh in 1920. It is indeed deplorable that a Gandhian institution is being accused of embezzlement of funds meant for former mill workers. This is corruption at its worst at a time when today's Gandhi, Anna Hazare, is leading a fight against this scourge.

Michael Ondaatje, Ben Okri, David Remnick at Jaipur Lit Fest

Sri Lankan-born novelist Michael Ondaatje, Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto, Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri and New Yorker editor David Remnick are among the big names on the literary high street who will grace the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 Jan 20-24.

The festival will focus on subjects like vegetarianism, Bhakti and Sufi traditions, Arab Spring, Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar and Anna Hazare, writing from conflict zones, theatre and related issues, said a statement by Teamworks Production, the producer of the festival.

It will play host to over 200 speakers from across the globe who will debate, discuss and read from their works over four days at the Diggi Palace -- an old family mansion turned heritage property in Jaipur.

Said co-director of the festival, writer William Dalrymple: "The 2012 edition of the festival has the best line up of writers ever."

"I am particularly proud to have brought Tom Stoppard and David Hare, two of our greatest living playwrights; cutting edge writers of non-fiction like Amy Chua, Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker; and great novelists such as Annie Proulx, Ben Okri, Jonathan Safran Foer and Michael Ondaatje, as well as the editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick known for his frontline reports of the Arab Spring and the art of writing for stage and screen," Dalrymple said.

He said the "festival will also analyse the fascinatingly interwoven relationships of Tolstoy, Tagore and Gandhi at literary sessions".

Joseph Lelyveld, writer of a controversial book on Gandhi, is likely to attend the festival while Helen Fielding of the Bridget Jones fame has confirmed her participation.

Some of the other prominent authors who have confirmed their presence include Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Gulzar, Hari Kunzru, Jamaica Kincaid, James Schapiro, Jason Burke, Javed Akhtar, Mahesh Dattani, Pavan Varma, Piyush Daiya, Prasoon Joshi, Purushottam Agrawal, Rahul Bhattacharya, Rabi Thapa, Ranjit Hoskote, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Tahmima Anam, Thant Myint-U, Tom Stoppard and Zoe Heller.

"The festival is now the Kumbh Mela of Indian and international writing. It nourishes narratives and nurtures a vibrant literary community," co-director Namita Gokhale said.

The festival which is open to all visitors locally is trying to promote literary tourism in Jaipur. It is offering special rates at festival hotels - for those seeking accommodation.

An online registration for visitors and delegates has been made mandatory this year to avoid overcrowding and ensure better management, the organisers said in the statement.

It said "in 2011, the festival had showcased 225 speakers with 140 sessions".

"Nearly 60,000 visitors attended the five-day festival last year. The festival featured 20 concerts and live performances at the specially-designed music stage," the statement said.

Visitors from 24 countries, including Britain, the US, Australia, France, Germany, South Africa, Canada and Hong Kong, visited the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in 2011, it said.

Twentyfive per cent of the visitors came from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata.

"Last year, the local attendance accounted for approximately 60 percent of the total footfall. The festival drew over 700,000 web hits on Facebook and on its official site," the statement said.

Said Sanjoy K. Roy, producer-DSC Jaipur Literature Festival and managing director of Teamwork Productions: "We are completely overwhelmed with the response the festival received year after year. This is our fifth year at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival."

The festival will with the presentation of the second DSC South Asian Literature Awards. Six writers are in the running for the prize.

Marathi play on corruption gets Anna Hazare’s blessings

MUMBAI: Anna Hazare has found echoes of his India Against Corruption crusade in Ibsen's The Enemy of the People. The Gandhian recently attended the mahurat of Kondi, the Marathi adaptation of Ibsen's masterpiece, which is a searing account of a lone crusader's fight against corruption , at a simple function in Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar. Kondi will premiere in Mumbai sometime next month.

'' Hazare was keen to know the plot of Kondi. When we briefed him about the play, he said, 'It appears that Ibsen was concerned about the issue of corruption nearly a century ago.' He wanted to go through the entire script,'' said Marathi actor Shekhar Naware , who is helming the revival of Kondi. Navare and his team drove down to Ralegan Siddhi to call on Hazare. Vijay Kuwalekar and Suresh Pathare, Hazare's close aides, did the spadework for the meeting.

Hazare agreed to break the coconut , marking the play's mahurat . He suggested that the ritual be performed near Mahatma Gandhi's bronze bust. '' Hazare speaks in soft tones. Sometimes, he was almost inaudible. His staff and the entire set-up at the Baba Yadav temple (Hazare's pad in Ralegan Siddhi) works with clockwork precision. There was no confusion , no hassles,'' Naware added.

Kondi was first staged in Mumbai in the 1970s under the aegis of the Indian National Theatre (INT). The well-known theatre group specially invited the legendary Sombhu Mitra-who had staged the Bengali adaptation of The Enemy of the People in West Bengal-to direct Ashok Shahane's Marathi adaptation. Satyajit Ray's Ganashatru, too, is based on Ibsen's play.

Experts point out that barring few exceptions, popular Marathi theatre hasn't much dabbled in political plays. Vijay Tendulkar's Ghashiram Kotwal examines the dynamics of unbridled power and its gross misuse by those holding high offices. G P Deshpande's Uddhwasta Dharmashala discusses the dilemma of a Leftist intellectual who is torn between dogma and personal belief.

Anna is new kid on the blog, and he is loving it

A week ago, Anna Hazare went on yet another maun vrat — his 11th to date. Yet the septuagenarian activist has probably never been more vocal. For, every morning for the past three weeks, Hazare has taken to directly talking to all interested through www.annahazaresays.wordpress.com — his blog that was launched on September 29 and that he has apparently taken enthusiastically to.

The newest kid on the blog may not know how to type or operate a computer but Hazare, say his aides, “claps his hands” every time he is shown the updated blog and the responses it has received.

“Through this blog, in a matter of moments, my thoughts reach thousands of people around the globe,” Hazare told The Indian Express, in a written response. “I am also getting their reactions. I am happy that technology is helping like-minded people come together. Had Mahatma Gandhi been alive today, I am sure he would have used this technology to reach out to the masses.”

“Anna used to get very upset every time a statement by him appeared twisted, creating controversies. Now he feels his thoughts can reach people in his own language,” said Suresh Pathare, Hazare’s personal secretary.

In fact in the first post Hazare wrote, he said: “Many a times people (even those who are close to me) make statements that do not collaborate with my thinking. Henceforth, through the medium of Internet, I will personally make sure my thoughts and views reach the people.”

While daily updates are a must, there are now many instances of two posts a day. The topics he addresses range from his Army days and the Lokpal debate to controversies of the day such as Kashmir. A recent biographical post titled ‘End of a Revolutionary’ summed up his life while in another he paid a tribute to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

New to the world of computers, Hazare has entrusted the responsibility of maintaining the blog to Raju Parulekar, a journalist, and Vijay Kuvalekar, who happens to be state information commissioner. Milind Werlekar, a software professional, looks after the technical aspects. Parulekar is helped in running the blog by a group of 13.

Hazare writes his blog posts in Marathi and translates them into Hindi himself. For the English translation, the posts are sent to Parulekar.

The aides say the activist is “extremely particular” that whatever is posted is exactly the way he has written it. “You can’t change even a single word. He decides where to put comma and where to put a hyphen. He himself edits and re-edits everything before he gives it to be keyed in, after which he again checks it before signing it,” said Pathare.

He is shown the saved webpage on a laptop as his room does not have Internet access.

“Whenever I go and show him the blog and explain to him how it works, he smiles and claps his hands with amusement,” said Parulekar.

“When I checked last, the blog had got about 64 lakh hits. Anna’s last post got 10 lakh-plus hits. We are also getting people’s comments from across the world. Annaji said that we can’t put selective comments, either put all or none. So we are moderating the comments and will soon put them all on,” said Parulekar.

“In a couple of months, the blog would be shifted to its own website,” he added. “Then it will be available in two south Indian languages and Bangla along with French and German. The blog is getting considerable hits from these places.”

The woes of being a Mahatma

The woes of Mahatmas are known to Mahatmas alone.

— MK Gandhi, Young India, April 21, 1927

Bapu could have w­ritten this to the new Mahatma am­ong us, ‘Mahatma’ Hazare nee ‘Anna’. On October 2 this year, coincidently or I believe not really, the Gram Sabha of Ralegan Siddhi passed a resolution that henceforth, the man they affectionately ca­lled ‘Anna’ will be called ‘Mahatma’. An­na Hazare pro­mptly refused to accept the honorific and as­k­ed that he be allowed to remain an ‘ordinary’ hu­man be­ing, and I would like to believe he was honest.

Bapu considered the title ‘Mahatma’ a burden. He wr­o­te reams to repudiate the honorific. “I would support any movement to drop altogether the use of the word ‘Mahatma’ before my name. My simple name sounds sw­eet without the adjective. The latter often stinks as wh­en it is applied to promote violence or untruth,” he wrote in Harijan on October 15, 1938.

Today, we see all sorts insincerely invoking his name to gain legitimacy and respe­ctability. Narendra Modi la­unched his campaign for pr­ime minister’s post with a farce he called Sadbhavana, Bapu would have cringed to see his photographs used as a backdrop on Narendra Mo­di’s stage and on the stage of the farce enacted by the Congress leaders on the road outside Sabarmati Ashram to co­unter Modi’s 5 star farce.

Bapu would have also cri­nged seeing his photograph as a backdrop on Anna Hazare’s stage at Ramleela Maidan, as day after day An­n­a roared that the corrupt s­h­ould be hanged and the tr­aitors done away with. Anna admirably managed to keep the emotions of his supporters in check for the entire period of his agitation and ensured there was no violence, but his speeches and utterances were extremely violent, from a stage where the backdrop was a large picture of Bapu.

Since April, when Anna first sat on a fast at Jantar Mantar to force the Government to act on the Jan Lok Pal Bill, he inspired people and became an iconic figure, those who manage him very assiduously built him up into an iconic figure and right from then there began comparisons with Bapu. In recent times, Anna comes closest to personifying the image of Bapu; that I agree. Since April, there ha­ve been whispers of ‘Aaj ka Gandhi’ and a campaign has been launched to turn him into a modern day Messiah, Mahatma, ably assisted by the media.

By August, he had been christened the ‘Naya Gandhi’ and slogans were raised c­o­mparing him to a tornado, which would sweep corruption away and annihilate the corrupt. ‘Anna nahi ye Aandhi hai, Aaj ka Gandhi hai’. Sounded very good but those who coined this slogan seem to be too overawed by Bapu and Indira Gandhi because she was the first Indian leader to be called a tornado, ‘Indira Nahi ye Aandhi hai!’ was a favourite slogan of her sycophants in Congress. An­n­a’s managers definitely ca­n’t claim to be original.

To me what is distasteful is the fact that ever since An­na launched his movement or, truly speaking, Anna’s supporters usurped the anti corruption segment for him, they have forced him to run a race, a race with a dead man — MK Gandhi.

At every step, comparisons have been made with Bapu, culminating in the pe­ople of Ralengansiddhi ano­inting him Mahatma on October 2, Bapu’s 142nd birth anniversary. It feels as if they are desperate to fast track An­na’s ascent to be placed on par with Bapu.

They and Anna will be better off reading and understanding what Bapu had to say about these kind of comparisons and ambitions of fol­lowers to aggrandise their leaders: “In the majority of cases addresses presented to me contain adjectives which I am ill able to carry. Their use can do good neither to the writers, nor to me. They unnecessarily humiliate me, for I have to confess that I do not deserve them. When th­ey are deserved, their use is superfluous. It cannot add to the st­rength of the qualities possessed by me. They may, if I am not on my guard, easily turn my head.”(Young In­dia: May 21, 1925.)

I hope Anna reads this, it is a warning Bapu left behind for all those who strove to be or on whom ‘Mahatmaship’ was forced.

I conclude with Bapu’s words from Young India, da­ted January 12, 1930: ‘Th­ank God, my much vau­nted Mahatmaship has never fo­oled me.”

(The writer is founder president, Mahatma

Gandhi Foundation)

Bedi cites Mahatma, justifies her anti-MP rant

New Delhi: Anna Hazare's close associate and former Indian Police Service officer Kiran Bedi is back to stoking controversy and has now invoked the name of Mahatma Gandhi to further her cause. Bedi, who is already facing a privilege motion for lampooning MPs and politicians during Hazare's anti-corruption agitation, tweeted that even Mahatma Gandhi had criticised the working of the British Parliament.

Responding to a fellow tweeter, she quoted the Indian Home Rule or Hind Swaraj to say Mahatma Gandhi was unsparing in his critique of the British Parliament.

"Tweeple pl search and read Indian Home Rule or Hind Swaraj pages 27 carrying scathing views of Gandhiji on British Parliament," she tweeted.

She also said that may be the Mahatma's grandson Tushar Gandhi also needs to read the Indian Home Rule to gain a better perspective.

Expressing her angst at Parliament and policies formulated during the British rule, she in fact quotes Anna as sayings: "@eldersforpeople which is why the outcry. Anna used to say 'Gore Chale Gaye aur Kale Reh Gaye (white people have left, but left behind the blacks)".

Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar received the privilege notice against Bedi from PL Punia, Jagadambika Pal, Ramashankar Rajbhar, Lalchand Kataria, Mirza Aslam Beg, Praveen Aron and Shailendra Kumar.
The privilege motion against her has been sent to the Privilege Committee by the Speaker.